The New Albion Radio Hour
The New Albion Radio Hour: A Dieselpunk Opera, '''is a three act musical written by Paul Shapera. It is the second album in the New Albion Tetralogy and serves as a sequel to The Dolls of New Albion. Radio Hour is a radio drama set in a Dieselpunk New Albion, roughly 10 years after the end of Dolls of New Albion. It starts with a recounting of the period between plays with Solider 7285's rebellion and tells the story of the final battle of the '''civil war, revolving around the O'Brien family. Singers The show features four singers who have the dominate roles of the play. The female lead of Constance is sung once again by Lauren Osborn. The main male lead is sung by Oliver Marsh who plays John O'Brien. The other female role is sung by Courtney Ellis, who plays Jacqueline O'Brien. The narrator of the play is Lloyd Allen, who is voiced by Paul Shapera. Plot The 1st Act covers John O'Brien and his life of misfortune as a super solider. The 2nd Act follows Constance O'Brien, a seductive thief who plans on toppling the government and their plans. The 3rd and final Act follows Jackie, closing the story with an all out battle. The first two acts develop parallel to each other and lead to the events of the third act. Act I The Narrator Lloyd Allen introduces New Albion as it is after roughly ten years of civil war. John O'Brien is introduced: he is sitting in a room waiting for the call to action. John is an experimental warrior, a super-soldier fighting for the government. It is revealed John's wife had died in rebel bombing and some time later he was offered a chance of revenge when a government official approached him and invited him to participate in the experimentation program artificially improving the soldiers' bodies and turning them into weapons. John takes the offer and says goodbye to his little daughter, Constance, and leaves. However, the experiment failed and John O'Brien is the only soldier who survived the process, making him the only super-soldier in the government forces. The first act ends with John O'Brien leading a platoon of men to Cryer's Boulevard and into the crucial battle determining the outcome of the war. They break into the substation but John O'Brien freezes before shooting as he locks eyes with a young girl who recognizes him as her father. Act II Lloyd Allen introduces a singer Constance O'Brien joining him in the studio and playing the part of Inana, a low class young woman who lost her mother in rebel bombing. Inana is a thief on a mission punish the husbands of New Albion who are by law entitled to everything after a divorce, leaving their wives devastated. However, her fight is bigger than that and she is trying to take down the government because of the unfairness in their rule. She and her boyfriend Thomas are hired to steal a device and they attend a soiree party where she finds a soldier, Mark, and distracts him with dance and conversation until she gets a chance to steal the MCG device. Just as she leaves the room, the government soldiers break in, identify Mark as a rebel soldier and shoot him in the spot. Inana realizes the soldiers are after the MCG device and she runs away, leaving Thomas behind. Constance runs into her aunt, Jacqueline O'Brien, who takes her to safety and explains the importance of the MCG device. It turns out Mark was a rebel soldier delivering the MCG to Jackie and her rebel soldiers. The MCG device has the power to end the war in favor of those who use it. Jackie asks Constance to go to the underground and deliver the device to the Voodoopunks. Constance refuses since Thomas is stuck with the government soldiers and the only way to rescue him is to trade the MCG for his life. Constance runs away once more and finds Thomas the soiree. Surprised to see him unharmed, Constance asks him how he survived and Thomas reveals he is a policeman working for the government and that he was a double-agent all along and on a mission to find the MCG. He asks Constance to hand over the MCG if she wants to stay alive but she refuses and manages to run away as the bullets fly all around her. Devastated and betrayed, Constance seeks the Voodoopunks to give them the weapon they seek. In her wandering through the underground she meets Lloyd Allen and starts remembering the radio station but he convinces her to slip back into her character. She asks him who he is and he says he is whoever the story needs him to be. Soon after the encounter with Lloyd Allen, Thomas finds Constance and explains that his mission did not mean he lied about his feelings for Constance. He tries to convince Constance that the war must end and that the MCG can end it. At that moment, Jackie and the Voodoopunks find both of them and take Thomas in along with the MCG. ] The Voodoopunks had devised a plan to call the spirits of the other world through the MCG device and a human vessel to erase the minds of the government soldiers. For that, they use Thomas as the vessel. Just as the ritual ends, John O'Brien and a platoon of men break in the substation and Constance recognizes him (the same moment ending the first act). Act III John O'Brien had turned against his own soldier. Jackie and Thomas are still hidden underneath the ground while the battle rages above. Jackie and Thomas talk about their lives and what led them to that moment. After a while, Jackie suggests that they go back to the surface as the battle was supposed have ended by that time. Lloyd Allen attempts to explain that Jackie gave Thomas to the Voodoopunks to be executed but Jackie suddenly starts arguing with Lloyd Allen and refuses to do that. Lloyd Allen reluctantly narrates how Jackie and Thomas climb back to the surface together. There, the story goes back a few hours as the Blood Red Dogs join the battle against the super-soldier John O'Brien who is fighting his own soldiers. However, the Voodoopunks use the MCG and channel the song of the dead which erases the minds of the government soldiers but it fails to stop once they win the battle and it spreads through the city like a virus, turning everyone into a mindless zombie. Jackie and Thomas reach the surface. Jackie and John, sister and brother reunite and Constance and Thomas talk shortly as Thomas cannot understand how John and Constance survived the apocalypse around them. Jackie explains that she and Thomas were already possessed in the past and thus immune to the powers of the song and John is not human thus cannot be corrupted but she says there was no reason why Constance would be safe. |left]] As Jackie explains this, John says the city is lost and they should all run. Constance ignores all of them and approaches the MCG and sings another song. Lloyd Allen starts narrating the story but complains that the resolution to the story seems stupid and that Jackie should not change the narrative. Jackie argues that they cannot allow the whole city to fall. She says the proper tragedies are always the intimate ones and Lloyd Allen concedes, changing the narrative and making the government soldiers come to their senses and recognize Constance as the most hunted thief in the city despite Jackie's pleas for mercy. Jackie warns Constance and John gets ready to protect her. Thomas begs Constance to let him help her and give him a chance and the two of them flee the city, Constance deciding to find another way to continue her fight. Jackie refuses to leave John and stays to fight off the soldiers by John's side. She gets shot and she and John say goodbye. As Jackie dies, John starts raging and fighting all the government soldiers at once. Lloyd Allen takes over the story and says that John O'Brien died in the Boulevard of Cryer's taking all the soldiers with him. The rebels took the Parliament but could not find a common ground and so no government was formed, leaving New Albion separated in districts. Constance and Thomas left New Albion when the law regarding upper class women changed. He finishes the story saying that the Voodoopunks started resurfacing once more and that no one could tell if it was good or bad. Cast and Characters Main Characters Paul Shapera as "Lloyd Allen", the host and narrator of the New Albion Radio Hour Oliver Marsh as "John O'Brien", a government super-soldier, Constance's father, and Jackie's brother Courtney Ellis as "Jacqueline O'Brien" a voodoopunk priestess, Constance's aunt, and John's sister Lauren Osborn as "Constance O'Brien", a feminist thief, John's daughter, and Jackie's niece Paul Shapera as "Thomas", a government secret agent and Constance's boyfriend Minor Characters Paul Shapera as "Government Agent", an unnamed recruiter who approaches John in a bar to enlist him in the super-soldier program Paul Shapera as "Blood Red Dogs Leader", the captain of the Blood Red Dog force "Mannequin Chorus", the childlike voices coming from the mannequins that keep John company "Voodoopunk Chorus", a subculture religion led by Jackie, fusing Haitian voodoo and Celtic fae myths "Blood Red Dog Chorus" - Government funded military force Cover art by Stefan Paris Soundtrack